


Come morning light

by a_verysmallviolet



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Gen, Spirit World
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-17
Updated: 2014-07-17
Packaged: 2018-02-09 07:08:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1973523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_verysmallviolet/pseuds/a_verysmallviolet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Korra meets a pair of spirits in the Spirit World.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come morning light

Korra pushes through the last of the brambles and stops short in surprise. Abruptly, the rolling, verdant hills she’s been struggling through have given way to tundra. She stands on a high cliff; on either side of her the mountain range continues, while before her stretches the windswept tundra. In the distance are outcroppings of rocks, and the horizon is swept dusty pink and dull gold. The constellations look different here, but whether because they’re meant to mimic the North or because this is simply the Spirit World, she doesn’t know. She shivers. Her clothes had been warm enough for the Earth Kingdom, but even the padded linen coat and sturdy shoes don’t help her now. Rubbing her arms briskly helps a little, but her breath still plumes white in the cold air. It’s a minor mercy that it’s not actively snowing now.

A soft crunch of snow behind her alerts Korra to someone coming. Half without thought, she turns, lifting her hands and settling into a fighter’s crouch. The footsteps had seemed light, but she’s learned fast that size doesn’t equal danger, and especially not in the Spirit World.

A short figure in parka comes up the slope, holding a string of fish in one hand and panting slightly. Almost despite herself, Korra lowers her hands and relaxes her stance. This figure looks exactly like the Water Tribe children toiling after parents and older siblings, proud as proud can be to be helping the adults and furious at any offered assistance. The spirit’s fur-edged hood hangs far over their eyes, and they don’t see her until very near the top of the slope. 

It’s a boy. He stops and plants his feet wide when he sees her, staring in astonishment, and then his face splits into a bright smile.

“Hello!” he says, his voice very clear. 

“Hello,” Korra smiles back.

He looks about seven or eight, with a curl of hair in the middle of his forehead and friendly, wide-set eyes. Unlike her, he is dressed in full parka, from the wide fur ruff on his hood to the caribou-hide boots on his feet. He doesn’t carry a spear or bow, only a little gutting knife at his side. His dark blue parka and the cut of his belt suggest he was born in the Northern Water Tribe. There is no fear in his expression as he looks at her, but rather a gentle bewilderment and genuine welcome.

“You look new here. Have I seen you before?”

“No, I don’t think so. At least, I’ve never been here before,” Korra says. “Where is here, anyway?”

“The North,” he says simply.

“Ah,” Korra says, tipping her head back to look at the sky. She’d guessed right after all. Now that she’s paying attention, she can see the formation of the Spear in the stars.

She looks back at the boy, who’s waiting for her with a smile of patient good nature.

“Do you want to sit down?” he asks. “I’m supposed to wait for someone here. Are you waiting for someone too?”

Korra settles down cross-legged on a flat boulder, and he perches on a smaller stone nearby. As he speaks, he packs his fish in the snow, leaving the lines poking out to mark the spot.

“No, I’m just passing through,” Korra says. “What about you? Who are you waiting for?”

“My brother. I’m supposed to meet him here,” he says demurely. Then his reserve breaks, overrun by childish enthusiasm. “He’s the _best_ big brother in the world. We go fishing and racing, and we have snowball fights, and we play story knives, and there’s nobody that can take us apart. He’s my favorite person in the whole wide world…although I like you too,” he concludes.

“Thank you,” Korra says gravely, although she can’t quite keep her smile down. “I like you too.” Then something the boy had said strikes her. “So it’s just you and your brother? You don’t have any parents?”

His eyes drop, and he pokes a snowdrift with his boot. He shakes his head.

“No parents? No other family at all?” she presses.

“No…” he says slowly. “At least, I don’t think so. Although, maybe… “ He hesitates. “I think we did. Maybe. A long time ago…I don’t like to think about it much,” he finishes softly.

“Well, what do you like to think about?” Korra asks, stricken by the sudden sadness in his eyes.

The boy’s face lights up instantly.

“Fishing!”

As he goes on excitedly about reel length and the best times to fish, Korra smothers a smile at how easy he was to distract. Hopefully this baby never goes into politics.

“I don’t like to hunt much, my brother does that for us, but look, I caught all three of these by myself!”

Proudly he hoists up the three fish on their lines, sleek and silver. Korra admires them duly and vocally, which makes his dark cheeks blush with pleasure.

“My brother and I go fishing together sometimes,” he declares shyly. “We have contests to see who can catch more. He’s older, but I can still beat him most of the time. Same goes for sled races and snowball fights.”

The boy leans in and puts a hand up on the side of his mouth.

“Sometimes I let him win,” he stage whispers. “So he doesn’t feel bad.”

“That’s nice of you,” Korra says, her mouth twitching again. Really, this child is too sweet. She will miss him when she goes back.

Suddenly he straightens, looking behind her with his eyes wide and his mouth curving up in a delighted smile.

“Oh, oh! There he is! My brother’s coming!”

He jumps up and down, practically wriggling in excitement like a puppy. Korra turns. 

On the tundra below them another boy comes, taller and leaner than the one almost bursting with excitement beside her. He’s dragging a sled behind him, and he wears his hair like she does, in the triple wolf tails. In spite of the heavy sled he moves easily on the packed snow. He’s still some distance away.

Korra’s new friend is busily unpacking the fish and brushing the snow off them, shooting frequent glances down at his brother and nearly dancing in place. As he works he chatters to her about all the fun he and his brother are going to have, cooking the fish (“I’m a _good_ cook,” he declares proudly, “much better than he is”) and then going on into the night. When they are tired they will build an igloo together, just big enough for the two of them, and spread the sleeping furs inside and light the oil lamp and sleep next to each other all night long.

“And when I wake up, he’ll still be there,” the boy confides, his voice hushed and his eyes glowing like this is the greatest gift he could ever ask for. “Isn’t that wonderful?”

It is, Korra agrees. Very wonderful.

The sleek whisper of sled runners on snow is just loud enough to be heard now, and Korra looks back behind her. The boy below has neared the bottom of the slope, looking up at them both, the rawhide straps of the sled still slung over his shoulder. Close up, he looks lanky and hard, like he’s just beginning to grow and put on lean adult muscle. Korra would put him at around eleven or twelve. 

He cups his hands to his mouth and shouts something up at them. The wind snatches away his words before Korra can hear, but the younger boy grabs up the fish and waves down at him.

“Coming!” he calls in his piping-high voice, then turns shyly to Korra. “I have to go now.”

“Okay,” Korra says. She should probably get going now too, but she’s enjoyed talking to him. “I hope you have fun with your brother.”

His smile is almost blinding. “I will!”  


He runs over to the edge of the cliff, hesitates, and then looks back at her. His head is tilted quizzically, as though trying to remember something from long ago, like a face, or a name. Then his face clears. He runs back over to her on his short legs and hugs her tightly.

“Goodbye, Korra,” he whispers into her ear.

Again his brother calls out to him, his voice slightly edged with impatience now. Light as snow on the wind the boy breaks away and runs to the cliff edge again.

“Coming, Noatak!” 

_Noatak?_

Korra leaps to her feet, staring dazedly at the small figure descending the path from the cliff. For a moment she stands, wavering and still half-frozen in shock. Then suddenly she recollects herself, and runs over to the cliff edge.

The spirit boy is picking his way carefully down the rocky path, clutching his fish in one hand, while his brother stands and waits patiently below. A slight wind has picked up, making the fur on his ruff wave and blowing Korra’s hair around her face. Her throat feels suddenly dry; her heart, beating loud as thunder in her ears. She cannot speak.

As she watches, the boy stumbles on the path. He does not fall, and continues on without sign of hurt, but the hood of his parka falls back. Three neat braids sway behind him in the wind.

Korra’s hands go to cover her mouth.

At the base of the cliff he stays talking to the older boy for a minute. Both boys look up at Korra, still standing on the cliff, and raise their hands: the younger boy waving exuberantly, the older more guarded. Korra waves back. 

The two turn away smoothly over the packed ice. The boy with the triple braids still hasn’t replaced his hood, and the three tails beat lightly against his back with each step. His brother’s wolf tails, darker and shorter, wave gently in the wind.

The brothers skate around an outcropping of rocks, and disappear from sight.


End file.
